Questioning this, because I worked with a sysadmin who was in an @Home/CableLabs DOCSIS beta region at about that same time, and we all envied him of course. That was in San Jose, CA.

So what's the real story behind your piddlly little town getting bleeding edge cable internet service? (Or was it somewhere like Los Gatos?)

Firstly, you’ve spelled “megabits” wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate

Secondly, that 10 Mbps was only your downstream signaling rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_signaling_rate

Was your upstream via analog dialup?